Continuity
by Cherry chain
Summary: Clara is curious about the Doctor's history, but gets a much more confusing answer than she bargained for. Continuity just isn't a thing when you're constantly in the middle of cosmic disasters I guess. Drabble


"Say Doctor, where did you come from?" Clara asked one day, leaning back against the wall as she watched the Doctor sit in his usual place under the console, buried in wires and tubes and panels and who knows what else. For the first time in half an hour Clara finally saw the Doctor's face as he ducked under the mess, leaning so far back on his little swing-chair that she was concerned he was going to flip over and hit his head against the floor.

"Nowhere in particular." He swung back up to a reasonable sitting position and was followed by the muffled sound of the sonic screwdriver as he resumed his tinkering with the TARDIS's insides.

Clara crossed her arms and pushed off the wall towards the Doctor, ducking her head under all the wires to get a better look at him, and couldn't make out much more than just his back.

"What kind of answer is that?"

The Doctor swung down again, leaning so far back that his upside-down face was inches from hers, his floppy hair whipping her face in the process.

"The correct one. Why?"

"No reason. Maybe it's just because, oh, I don't know, you're an alien and we've been travelling together for a while? Come on, tell me more about yourself!" she replied as she blinked rapidly, trying to dislodge a strand of his hair from her eyes. He swung back up, and her eyes watered as the action ripped that one strand of hair off her eyeball. Ow.

"Sorry Clara, some things are better left unasked."

Clara frowned at the reply, the words serious but his tone light-hearted. It was always like that with him. That childish act to hide whatever the hell he's always hiding, so well practised that sometimes it's impossible to tell if it was real or a coping mechanism.

"Sorry if I'm prying, but I just thought-"

The Doctor got off his chair and in one smooth motion swung around it to sit down again on the other side, this time facing Clara. He made wild circular motions with his right hand as he twirled his sonic screwdriver in the other as he talked.

"No, no, you misunderstand. It's not that. It's just that I'm not entirely sure myself. I'm certain if I thought long and hard about it, I might be able to give you an answer but honestly it'll probably change again soon, so why bother?" The Doctor had that stupid goofy look on his face with that infuriating twinkle in his eyes that let Clara know that he knew she didn't understand what he said and was thoroughly enjoying her irritation at the fact.

"Explain," she demanded, crossing her arms.

"When events get changed, most people forget it. They have memories from whatever the new timeline is and that's it. I'm a Time Lord Clara, and I have probably done more Time Travel than anyone else in this universe. So I see things differently; I see all that was, is, could have been and never will be, and really, I should be able to keep it straight in my head but my timeline is a bit more convoluted than most." The Doctor hopped to his feet, leaning forward so that he was face to face with his companion again, except this time they were both right-side up.

"In fact, in this incarnation alone I've been in the centre of an imploding universe, t_wice_. In one universe I think I didn't actually exist in history until a friend conjured me on her wedding day, though I'm not sure if that timeline is still solid or if we've broken it already, a lot of timey-wimey happened afterwards. Long story. I've been to parallel universes and back and not-so-parallel universes and back, and actually it's hard to tell sometimes if I actually did end up back in the exact same universe. I've been in the middle of more paradoxes than I can count- and let me tell you, I can count quite high! So Clara, I don't know where to even begin to answer your question because there's hundreds of different possible answers in my head and I really can't be bothered to figure out which one is the correct one for the current intact timeline."

Clara stared at the Doctor in silence, trying to absorb all of that.

"You know, if you don't want to give me a straight answer, you could just tell me." Clara finally responded with a bemused look.

"Hey, I'll let you know that for once I'm telling the absolute truth!" The Doctor pouted.

* * *

AN: I've been catching up on Classic Who and reading up on the Doctor's history in all the media I can't get my hands on and I couldn't help but notice how big of a convoluted contradictory mess the whoverse continuity is. There's like 5 different official stories about how The Doctor left Gallifrey. Even just within New Who there's very little regard for continuity. Instead of being overly grumpy about it, I've decided to just accept this as an explanation


End file.
